Industrial Aquaculture
Industrial finfish and shellfish aquaculture operations cram thousands of fish into inhumane conditions, damaging our oceans and coastlines, impacting local communities, and harming native species. We fight back through litigation, legislation, and citizen action to hold the industry accountable.
What is Industrial Aquaculture?
Aquaculture, the farming of fish and seafood, is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global food production industry. The decimation of ocean fisheries through decades of over-fishing and the desire to sell more seafood cheaply has led to the rapid privatization of ocean waters on an industrial scale.
This rapid increase in demand for fish and fish products has outpaced our regulatory agencies’ ability to manage emerging environmental and human health threats from the aquaculture industry. Though presented by the industry as a “solution” to over-fishing, the overwhelming evidence is that aquaculture is not relieving any pressures on wild fisheries. Rather, industrial aquaculture has intensified the depletion of our ocean resources, added new threats to our marine ecosystem and wildlife, and created new risks to human health and the environment—all to the detriment of the traditional fishing economies and the public.
Impacts of Industrial Aquaculture
Industrial aquaculture has resulted in a far-reaching variety of environmental consequences, including the escape of farmed fish from their containment that threatens native wild fish populations; the spread of deadly diseases and parasites; the overfishing of wild fish to feed carnivorous farmed fish; and the pollution of our ocean from the inputs and outputs of fish farming. Dumping of aquaculture facility wastes into open ocean waters can destroy fragile marine environments. Antibiotics used to prophylactically treat farmed fish can bioaccumulate in wild marine animals and harm critical ocean bacteria, and harmful pesticides used to control sea lice and protect fish eggs can poison complex marine environments.
Industrial aquaculture raises significant human health and food safety concerns. The antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals that are heavily used to prevent disease and parasites in fish farming can accumulate in fish tissues. Additionally, the feed given to fish in aquaculture is made from wild-caught fish that may be heavily contaminated with dioxins and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). Studies have found farmed fish to be less healthful than their wild counterparts, refuting the alleged advantages of eating aquaculture-sourced seafood.
Farmed fish species that are ill-suited for the wild can escape and interbreed with wild stocks and “water down” the gene pool, leading to the potential extinction of those native stocks. Farmed fish species can invade natural habitats and alter both the physical geography of the ecosystem and the localized food web, competing with wild fish for space and resources. They can also impact marine mammals that may aggregate in new locales due to the changing environment and food sources.
Fish crammed in unsanitary conditions in aquaculture facilities are prone to infection and disease, such as infectious salmon anemia and sea lice. Diseased fish can escape and spread such pathogens to wild stocks with potentially devastating effects.
Center for Food Safety works to halt the environmental and public health impacts of industrial aquaculture. Our lawsuits and legal actions fight to prevent full-scale schemes of industrial aquaculture in federal waters, and stop polluting industrial finfish and shellfish operations in state waters. In a litigation campaign now spanning over a decade, we have yet to lose a case.
The leading aquaculture law court decisions of the 21st century are all CFS-counseled victories. CFS compelled federal courts to strike down the first-ever industrial finfish permitting scheme for federal oceans in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as held federal agencies accountable under core environmental protection laws when permitting shellfish aquaculture operations in Washington. Most recently, CFS litigation struck down a first-ever effort to authorize the building of aquaculture structures in ocean waters off the western continental United States.
Our Industrial Aquaculture Litigation
Victory • Cases with Impact • Environment and Biodiversity Defense • Animal Factories • Industrial Aquaculture
Stopping Industrial Aquaculture Pollution of Our Oceans (NWP56)
Center for Food Safety successfully challenged Nationwide Permit 56, a federal permit that would have authorized industrial offshore fish farming in U.S. ocean waters without adequate environmental review or protections for marine ecosystems. The decisions prevented the nationwide expansion of industrial offshore fish farming through NWP 56 and reaffirmed that federal agencies must comply with environmental laws before authorizing new industries in public waters.
Victory • Cases with Impact • Environment and Biodiversity Defense • Animal Factories • Industrial Aquaculture
Fighting Industrial Aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico
CFS successfully challenged the government's attempt to authorize industrial fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico, securing landmark court victories that prevented the creation of a new aquaculture industry in U.S. federal waters for the first time. This work established a landmark legal victory protecting our oceans and fishing communities.
Cases with Impact • Environment and Biodiversity Defense • Animal Factories • Industrial Aquaculture
Stopping Industrial Shellfish Aquaculture in Washington
Center for Food Safety challenges industrial shellfish aquaculture operations that threaten water quality, sensitive coastal habitat, endangered species, and public access to clean shorelines. Our work has secured multiple landmark victories protecting Washington's sensitive shorelines and wildlife habitat from this expanding industry.
This litigation supports CFS’s broader campaign to ensure industrial aquaculture expansion does not come at the cost of ecological integrity, Tribal sovereignty, public shorelines, or clean water.
